


Ring On Ring In

by fiddleyoumust



Category: Bandom, Panic At The Disco
Genre: Multi, Secret Marriage, Secret Relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-01-04
Updated: 2012-01-04
Packaged: 2017-10-28 21:11:50
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,109
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/312230
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fiddleyoumust/pseuds/fiddleyoumust
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Spencer is secretly married to Brendon and Sarah. It's not the easiest thing in the world.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Ring On Ring In

**Author's Note:**

  * For [playfullips (dessertmeltdown)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/dessertmeltdown/gifts).



> Written for [Bandom Secret Married Fest](http://girlmarauders.livejournal.com/17643.html)!
> 
> This is waaaay more melancholy than I meant it to be. >.>

Spencer’s on his second bottle of champagne by the time he hears the key in the lock.

Sarah comes stumbling in first, her high heels in her hand. Her hair is a mess and her lipstick is smeared across the corner of her mouth. Brendon follows behind her, a stupid grin on his face that lets Spencer know he is good and drunk.

Sarah notices him first. Her whole face lights up when she sees him.

“You’re here,” she says.

Spencer feels conflicted.

He’s happy to see them. It’s been a long week at his parent’s house. He feels tired and emotionally drained and he’s missed them both so much. But, it’s a new year and they seem to have rung it in just fine without him. Spencer wonders how it’s possible to feel like a third wheel when Brendon was his first.

“I’m here,” Spencer says.

Sarah crosses the room and kneels down on the carpet by Spencer’s feet. Her nails are blood red tonight. They stand out against the blue of Spencer’s jeans when she places her hand on Spencer’s knee.

“How’s your dad?” she asks.

It’s so like her. She is sweet and considerate and always tries to find the best in people even when they don’t deserve it. Spencer thinks that she probably never hates Spencer the way Spencer sometimes hates her.

“He’s good,” Spencer says. “Nothing’s really changed, but it was a good Christmas.”

Sarah looks over her shoulder at Brendon who shakes his head. He looks sad, but he smiles at Spencer when their eyes meet. No one says what they’re all thinking. Spencer doesn’t want to think about a Christmas that doesn’t include his father.

“That’s good,” Brendon says. “I hope you sent them our love.”

“I did,” Spencer says. “They sent theirs back.”

Everything goes quiet and awkward for a moment.

Spencer can’t stand it.

“Did you have fun at your party?” Spencer asks.

He looks at Sarah for the answer.

She nods as she reaches up and starts unbuttoning the top button of Spencer’s shirt. He stops her hands and sighs. He thinks maybe he shouldn’t have come back tonight, but he’d wanted to be home. When he thinks of home this is the only place that ever comes to mind anymore.

“Brendon,” Sarah calls.

Brendon comes over and kneels on the couch next to Spencer. He turns Spencer’s face up and kisses him. Sarah goes back to Spencer’s buttons. Brendon only stops kissing him long enough for Sarah to shove Spencer’s shirt off his shoulders.

“We’re glad your home,” Sarah says.

Spencer wants to believe that. It’s hard being the friend, being the band mate, when in reality he is so much more. Just once he’d like to be the one who is kissed at midnight -- to go out for dinner and drinks like he’s part of a unit instead of someone along for the ride. He never expected this to be easy, but he realizes now that he also didn’t think it would be this hard.

The night they’d asked him Brendon had said, “Because we want you – both of us – if you think you might want us too.”

Sarah had been the one to say, “We love you, Spencer. We love you so much.”

It had never even crossed Spencer’s mind to say no.

Now, Spencer wonders what it would be like if he had said no, if he had let himself find his own kind of love instead of accepting theirs.

Thinking things like that hurts like thinking about his father hurts.

He doesn’t want to lose them.

“I’m glad to be home,” Spencer says.

He leans down and kisses Sarah’s red lips. Her hand is cool against his cheek -- her wedding band colder still where the platinum touches his face. She grounds Spencer -- her mouth and her hand. She makes him feel like he’s not alone.

It’s strange -- this bond they have -- this fragile sort of love that started from a mutual love of someone else. It’s made them allies where it would make other people enemies. There are times he is so jealous of what she has with Brendon that he thinks it might eat him alive. He knows she feels the same -- the long months on the road when Brendon belongs mostly to Spencer and Sarah is left alone to miss them both.

He loves her so much.

One of his greatest fears is that she doesn’t know it.

Spencer’s mother is always talking to Spencer about the rewards of marriage.

How it’s hard.

How it can be so. So. Worth it.

When it’s just the three of them Spencer can almost believe it.

Brendon squeezes Spencer’s hand. He’s got glitter in his hair and his bowtie is crooked and Sarah’s lipstick is smudged across the collar of his shirt.

Spencer loves him more than anything. There’s nothing he wouldn’t do for him.

“Let’s go to bed,” Brendon says.

Spencer grabs his own ring where it hangs suspended by a chain right above his chest. Sometimes it stings that he can’t wear it on his finger like Brendon and Sarah do, but there are always people watching them. There are always people asking questions they’re not ready to answer. Spencer tells himself it is better this way. He rubs his finger across the inside of the ring where their initials are inscribed side-by-side. He holds it close like he wants to hold the both of them close.

“I love you,” Spencer says.

He says it to the room.

He says it to Brendon and Sarah in equal measure.

“Oh, baby,” Sarah says. “I love you too.”

It hits him. That she doesn’t say _we_. That she speaks only for herself. That maybe, just maybe, it is not BrendonandSarah and Spencer. That maybe they really are together in this. A unit. Tilll death do them part.

“I love you both,” Sarah says.

Brendon squeezes Spencer’s hand again.

He says, “As sweet as this is, I’ve always preferred physical displays of affection.”

It is so like Brendon to take a serious moment and flip it on its head. Spencer laughs, and it’s like the last week shakes loose from where it’s been lodged in his gut.

He feels freer than he has in a long time.

Spencer picks up his half-empty bottle of champagne and holds it up to both of them.

“Happy New Year,” he says.

“Happy New Year,” they say, almost in unison.

Outside, there are fireworks still popping in the streets.

Inside, Spencer passes the bottle of champagne to Sarah and smiles against Brendon’s lips as Brendon leans in to kiss him.


End file.
